Are you afraid your audience is growing cold? Are you drifting apart? Are you losing the spark? Relationships are fun and interesting when they are new. Eventually, you get to know each other oh too well and you need to put in some effort. Since Cosmopolitan will not offer you the expert advice you need, let talk this through together. We're of course speaking about your marketing relationship with your audience.
Do Something Together
Monologues belong in Shakespeare’s plays and theater in general. You need to keep a conversation going. How? Keep exploring all the things you have in common. Webinars, seminars, events, posts: every topic that concerns your target audience is something to bring you together.
Date Night
Remember that first time you met? It felt like you knew each other but in the same time there was so much to explore. You had so many questions and were so curious. Help your audience rediscover these moments by returning to your old posts. You might feel like the topics you’ve picked are evergreen, but they do need updating. Make sure you go through your posts and update links, facts, figures. You may even discover content from way back which still rings true. Why not rekindle the old spark and update the content for everyone’s enjoyment?
Open your website and try to look at it with the eyes of a new visitor. Do you enjoy the user experience? Does everything make sense? When was the last time you updated your home page? You can also visit other websites in your industry to compare. Feel free to invite someone to check out your website. Listen to what they have to say: critique is valuable and necessary.
While you are at it, why not check on your automated email campaigns? You spent a lot of time planning, creating content and programming, but ever since you set up the campaign, you’ve left it all to automation. Conversation topics and content can go stale. Make sure you revisit your campaigns from time to time and update them, so that the content is fresh, relevant and effective.
Talk Silly
Keeping it professional is important, but you need to show your sensitive and silly side. Make sure your audience sees your human side, not only the professional one. Let your audience get to know a bit of the you that exists outside of the office. Here are a couple of ideas to get personal:
- review something you like: there is an article you really like or a book you enjoyed reading? Share it with your audience.
- create a poll: ask your audience what they are interested in or what’s the hottest new thing. Start a dialogue.
- share your thoughts: lessons learned or insights? Interesting news? Share it in your own words.
- interview someone from your company: let the audience meet your colleagues and the other worker bees.
- interview someone from another company: you will make new connections and create fresh content for your site.
Try New Things
Spice things up with new tools, new media, new ways of presenting information. Yes, we mean infographics, images, Slideshare, etc.
Here are some other things you can add and keep fresh:
- Social media profiles: have daily updates on social media. There are tools that will help you schedule content and share it around your channels.
- Add FAQs to your website. Maybe there is a policy your visitors and customers need to be aware of. Make sure the information is relevant and is always up-to-date.
- Maybe people are more interested in your company than you think. Consider adding a “Company News” to the side and share current information on products, partnership and production.
- Try new plug-ins and extensions: stay informed about the new options your platform has to offer.
Invite Friends Over and Mix
Reach out to your audience and get to know their partners better. A fairly easy way to update your website is to provide information about websites that provide value for visitors so that your site becomes a valued resource. Bonus points for good SEO: search engines love link building.
You can also add client testimonials to the website. It is a must if you regularly receive good feedback. You will not only have a reason to update your site with new content every time you get a well-deserved compliment, but first-time visitors will be impressed with the positive comments.
Let them know you are thinking about them
You are better off having goldfish looking at your website: statistics from 2015 show that the average attention span of visitors is 8.25 seconds as opposed to 9 seconds of a gold fish. Only 4% of the website visitors will spend more than 10 minutes on a web page (presumably reading). All work no play makes your visitors… leave the website? Keep their attention by organizing games, competitions and offering discounts. People love deals and specials and it’s a proven way to generate interest. Make sure your visitors know you regularly announce new offers and you will keep them coming back for more.
Remember: the key to a successful relationship is good communication. And a lot of it. So keep your content fresh and interesting and your audience will keep coming back for more. Don’t forget: smart is the new sexy.
What are your tips for keeping the relationship with your audience healthy?
